Britain’s 10 Year Plan for AI Dominance

On the 22nd of September, the UK launched its latest national strategy to deal with the benefits and challenges related to artificial intelligence. Britain’s “National AI Strategy” outlines a “10 year plan to make Britain a global AI superpower”, in order to compete with rivals such as the US and China. Strategic drivers identified such as access to people, computing power, data, and finance are in the crosshairs of this strategy, in order to be properly utilized to achieve Britain’s ambitious AI goals.

Britain’s Emergence as an AI Powerhouse

Britain is currently a leader when it comes to the immigration of AI researchers, being only second to the United States. According to the report, since 2014 the UK has also invested upwards of £2.3 billion in AI initiatives. Many of the most influential AI companies to date reside in the UK as well. These include:

• DeepMind– AI research laboratory responsible for breakthroughs such as AlphaFold and AlphaGo
• BenevolentAI– A pharmaceutical company that utilizes AI for the purpose of drug discovery
• Darktrace– A world leader for AI in cybersecurity
• Graphcore– A semiconductor company which develops processors for the use of machine learning

Scaling up on the AI industry is a major incentive for the UK, one which could have a projected 22% growth in store for Britain’s economy. These benefits don’t come without their challenges however, and regulators have identified a need for more strategies and initiatives to address the growing AI industry.

Supporting the Current AI Ecosystem in Britain

The strategy has identified three major goals it sets out to accomplish. The initial target proposed is a plan for an investment strategy which will cover the long term needs which the AI ecosystem in Britain requires. This will be done first and foremost by supporting the current AI landscape through increased venture capital. The UK government also seeks to incentivize the attraction of AI talent through the revitalization of its immigration processes regarding skilled individuals in the sphere of AI research.

Reforms to the current immigration routes for relevant prospects will ensure that top AI talent can consider Britain to be a competitive option when considering immigration over other destinations, specifically the United States. These processes will also ensure that transplant workers in the field of AI and machine learning won’t get lost in the complicated bureaucratic red tape often associated with immigration, and can focus more on R&D which will help Britain achieve its technological goals.

The Shift to an AI Enabled Economy for Tomorrow

The plan outlines how the government can support a transition from the UK economy of today, to an AI enabled one. Finding the relevant sectors, incorporating AI respectably, and stimulating the economic implications of AI development is a foremost goal of this strategy. Challenges exist in the sector of intellectual property law regarding creations resulting from AI, which this section of the strategy seeks to address as well with new revisions to its current legal IP framework.

In the short term, Britain is seeking AI based solutions in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. BenevolentAI is currently utilizing a biomedical knowledge graph for example, to look for pharmaceutical breakthroughs for COVID-19. Other catalytic adoptions of AI in the current UK economic spheres which the report includes are the; reduction of costs for the Ministry of Defense and the achievement of climate goals, overall climate change mitigation, and increasing AI procurement accessibility. In the long term, it can be expected that we will see an establishment of more joint programs from the UK government that focus on the implementation of AI throughout broader swathes of Britain’s economy.

Effective Governance of AI Technologies

The last pillar outlined in Britain’s new AI strategy pertains to effective AI governance. The plan seeks primarily to build a framework which from within, regulators can build ethical AI enablement policies that carry a safe and proportionate impact on the public. This means the achievement of public trust by utilizing regulators capacities for understanding AI in its deployment, while simultaneously mitigating the very likely possibilities for risks associated with the technology.

Previous data protection legislation isn’t explicit enough pertaining to all aspects of emerging AI technology. The UK General Data Protection Regulations and Data Protection Act 2018 wasn’t specifically intended for technology such as AI, and doesn’t address challenges such as the usage of personal data in AI systems (which often don’t use personal data at all), the mitigation of program biases, and transparency requirements. In November 2021, the DCMS will conclude a consultation on reforms to the current data protection framework regarding these newly introduced challenges.

The strategy is also aimed at setting new international norms regarding AI. The UK plans on supporting the development of the newly proposed EU AI Act, as well us helping the EU with reconstructing its current legal framework pertaining to AI technologies. Collaboration with NATO allies is included in the strategy as well for the purpose of increased interoperability regarding defense issues that arise from AI. The UK is currently part of the pentagon formed AI partnership for defense, a 14 nation coalition that addresses these newly forming challenges. The creation of a “AI Standards Engagement Toolkit” proposed in the strategy, will help to set and enforce standards in the global landscape when it comes to AI, and help to set forth new international norms.

Future Expectations of the Legislation

The strategy itself recognizes the lack of information which is currently available in order to perfectly cover every corner of the broad AI landscape. Newly emerging data from the commercial and governmental sectors, as well as from academia, will be paramount in the evolution of the UK’s responses to AI technology in the coming years. The strategy does however, cast a broad net of newly proposed initiatives which will accent the current legal framework in order to best be able to advance in a coinciding fashion with new findings. The ambitious nature of this strategy in supporting Britain’s goals for becoming a “global AI superpower” may be realized, but as of now the government hasn’t flushed out the details for how funding all of its new proposals will occur. The strategy at the very least sets a precedent for how other nations can pursue effective AI legislation, and if all the initiatives proposed are followed through with, we may one day see the UK gaining the global AI hegemony that it seeks to achieve.